More annoying than that is the email monopoly operators deciding any non-monopoly email is spam, effectively driving businesses into their corporate packages. As a business, you have no guarantee that if you run your email server or have a hosting company run it, you'll actually be reaching customers.
I've been self-hosting for about 15 years now, and the only deliverability problems I've had in the past were with ISPs. I have no problem sending to Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and so on, or any business who hosts their own E-mail. Very occasionally, I get bounces from people who still get their E-mail through their ISP, like from AT&T or something. But I just go through the ISP's opaque process and deliverability goes back to normal.
Same here, 10 years self hosting. I've heard this claim a lot but I've never actually seen it, or seen evidence of it.
The worst I've ever had was gmail refusing to accept a ~50MB zip file as an attachment. And you know what? I'm not even mad about that one, that's totally fair.
And worse, your customers blame you instead of the provider, forcing the switch even more. "I don't have any problems with other emails, it must be your fault."
Is this not the logical result of fighting spammers? It’s easier to trust messages coming from mega corp when you know mega corp has invested in mechanisms that ensure their systems aren’t being used to send spam. I certainly don’t like the negative impact on people who choose to self host, but I also don’t see it as an intentional effort to shut out legitimate emails.
It's always good to have an alternative reason beyond "we want to crush the competition", especially if one of these pesky anti-trust lawsuits comes around.
It's very easily possible for both to be true, there is a "fight spam" reason and there is also a "monopoly" reason, and of course unless you very stupid you never mention the second.
